Abba
by Sand-wolf579
Summary: The Legends go back to the fifties and Len finds himself reluctantly befriending a little boy. He never would have guessed that the boy would be a person from his own past.


**A/N: This idea just came to me a few days ago, and I realized that I was disappointed they didn't do something like this. So, of course, I ended up writing it myself. I did write Len as Jewish (not a practiced Jew, but a Jew nonetheless) because I've seen it in a fair amount of fanfiction, and I kinda like the idea.**

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Len didn't exactly hate time pirates. In fact, he somewhat respected them. After all, their goal was once what Len's had been. To use time travel to their advantage to commit masterful crimes. Len was also intrigued by the time pirates and where they came from. Were they all people who had worked for the Time Masters but had cut away from them? Were they just ordinary criminals from the future who somehow got their hands on time travel technology? Len didn't know for sure, and the mystery just made each run in with the time pirates all the more interesting.

The thing that bothered Len about these guys was they seemed to have no respect for human life. If a person, a family, or even a whole town was in the way of something they wanted, the time pirates got rid of them without a second thought. It was as though they didn't even bother trying to find an alternative method to get what they wanted. They were willing to kill men, women, and even children if it meant being able to steal a priceless artifact.

Len understood what the time pirates wanted, but he just didn't agree with their methods. There were some lines that just shouldn't be crossed. _Ever._

And, putting aside the questionable morality of what they were doing, Len knew that there were other ways to steal a gem from a museum than in the middle of the day when the museum was filled with people. Hell, he could think of about a dozen without even trying. These guys were needlessly endangering the lives of so many people, and it wasn't even to their advantage.

Also, Len figured that somebody should tell these idiots that there was a _reason_ why you shouldn't work with delicate explosives when there are other people around. Because somebody might see you, you might get distracted, and your whole plan, as well as half the museum, will just end up blowing up in your face.

 _This_ was why Len didn't like working with explosives. There were just too many unpredictable variables involved.

Fortunately, nobody had gotten fatally injured from the explosion, not even the time pirates. Plenty of people had minor scratches or bruises. One or two had bad, but not extremely serious, burns. A handful of people had broken a few bones, but that was it. Loads of people were scared to death, but nobody was actually dead, so the Legends considered this a semi-win.

They would consider it a _full_ win once the situation had gotten back under control.

Kendra and Firestorm had flown off after the few time pirates that had escaped. Mick and Ray were trying to repair any damage that had been done to the museum. Rip, Sara and Len were left to stay on the Waverider and run damage control with the citizens.

Rip was handling the adults just fine, but he really didn't do all that well with kids, so he put Len and Sara in charge of keeping an eye on the two dozen or so children that had been at the museum for a school fieldtrip.

Len absolutely despised it. He didn't exactly dislike kids, in fact, he liked kids a lot, but only when there was just one or two of them. Two dozen kids was just way too much for him to handle. Especially when they were all at that awkward age between six and ten, where they were old enough to question authority, but too young to completely think for themselves.

Len _really_ didn't want to deal with a bunch of brats who needed to be told what to do, but absolutely refused to listen. It had been a pain in the neck to deal with Lisa at that age, and she was his sister. He didn't even know these kids, and he imagined they wouldn't be much better. So he left the kids to Sara, who was surprisingly good with them. Len just stood in the corner and watched her do her thing.

Even with all the kids running around, Sara seemed to do a fairly good job at keeping an eye on all of them at once. She had got all the kids to play a game with her, half of her motive was so she could watch them getter, and the other half being that these kids were all still freaked out about what had happened and Sara was smart enough to know that it would be best to distract the kids from their fear. Most of the kids accepted this distraction willingly.

One little boy did not.

Len frowned when he saw one kid in the corner, away from the others. His head was bowed slightly, his eyes were closed, and he was muttering something under his breath. The boy was also swaying ever so slightly. Len narrowed his eyes as he watched the boy. Something just felt so... _familiar_ about him.

"Hey, Leonard, you sure you don't wanna join in on the fun?" Sara asked from their game of...something. Honestly, Len had no idea what game they were playing, and he wasn't entirely sure that the kids knew either.

"I'll pass." Len said coolly without taking his gaze away from the boy. "Why don't you ask him?"

"What?" Sara turned and saw who Len was looking at. "Oh, him. I already asked if he wanted to play, but I don't think he understood him. I think he's Arabic or something."

"Arabic?" Len deadpanned, because the kid most definitely didn't look middle eastern.

"Yeah, he's speaking some foreign language. It _sounds_ middle eastern." Sara shrugged and Len rolled his eyes. He highly doubted that the kid was Arabic, but now he was curious and wanted to hear for himself.

Len approached the boy and for some reason felt a sense of dread as he did so, an Alexa type feeling, which made him pause in his tracks. Why should he be feeling so anxious about this? He was just going to talk to a little boy. Something like that shouldn't warrant an Alexa feeling, and yet it did.

Len usually paid attention to his gut instincts, because they were right more often than they were wrong, but against his better judgement he pushed the feeling to the back of his mind. He didn't completely get rid of it, Len still had his guard up in case something went wrong, but he moved forward as though nothing would.

When Len was right in front of the kid he could hear the muttered words that the boy was saying. He was not surprised to find that he recognized the language. Sara was right about the language being middle eastern, but she had been completely off about which one. He wasn't speaking Arabic at all.

"You know Hebrew." Len said. The boy's eyes opened in shock and he looked startled, almost scared. Len was taken aback at the look. _Why_ did it look so familiar to him?

"Um, I don't _know_ know it." The boy said somewhat shyly. "I just know some."

"You mean you know scripture." Len hadn't understood word for word what the kid had been saying, but he did know that they were from the Torah. "Are you a Jew?" The kid's eyes widened almost comically.

"What? No!" The kid said quickly, and it didn't take a genius to tell that he was lying. Len knelt down so he could be at eye level with the kid. He had found that they were much more comfortable that way.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of your religion." Len said, though he didn't scold the kid. He understood where the fearful response was coming from. They were currently in the mid fifties. World War II wasn't all that long ago, and many Jews were probably still living in fear.

Still, Len didn't like to see the kid look so scared. Especially not over something like this. Len reached under his shirt and grabbed a necklace chain that he kept hidden the majority of the time. He pulled the necklace out to show the kid the Star of David at the end of the necklace. The boy looked at the necklace, and then turned his wonder filled eyes to Len.

"You're one too?" The kid sounded so awed by the possibility of meeting another Jew that Len thought that he might not have ever met another Jew other than his parents.

"Kinda." Len took the necklace off and handed it to the kid. "I haven't practiced since I was a kid though." Len barely remembered times when his parents had taken him to the synagogue. They had stopped after his father had been arrested. Len only still considered himself a Jew because his mother had been one. It had been an important part of her life, which was why Len never went anywhere without his Star of David. It reminded him of her, even though it had been his father who had given it to him.

The kid nodded, but didn't judge him, which for some reason made Len feel a little uncomfortable. He had been _expecting_ judgement and anger, and he didn't really know why.

"So, what was that scripture you were reciting?" Len asked as he got into a more comfortable position.

"Um, Psalms 31: 24." The kids eye brightened ever so slightly, though the way that he was rubbing his hands together gave away that he was still feeling nervous.

"You'll have to remind me which one that is." Len said, because even though he had memorized a few of them when he was a kid, he had never been very good at remembering the scripture references.

"Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart," The boy said automatically. "All ye that hope in the Lord."

Len nodded. He had suspected it would be something like that. "That's a good one. It was never one of my favorites though." Even as a child Len had never been very fond of the scriptures that said 'have faith in God and you will be safe'. What kind of message was that for kids? It was basically saying that if you _did_ end up getting hurt, well, it was your own damn fault because you must not have strong enough faith.

"Well, what is your favorite scripture?" The boy sat down on the ground next to him. Len flinched ever so slightly when he did and automatically scooted over a little bit so he could have some space.

"I don't remember what exactly it is." Len admitted. "But it talks about how the lord heals broken hearts and binds up wounds." Maybe he was just being sentimental now, but as a kid who was raised by an abusive father, the idea that there was somebody out there who would take away his pains, the physical and emotional ones, had sounded pretty good.

"Why is that one your favorite?" The kid asked. "Did someone hurt you?"

Len frowned. "They used to." He said in a quiet voice."

"...Does it still hurt?" The kid asked.

"Sometimes." Len admitted, because what else was he supposed to say?

The kid frowned and curled up against Len's side, which made him freeze up. Len started holding his breath without even realizing it. "I'm sorry." the kid said sincerely, as if Len's bad past was _his_ fault.

Len opened his mouth to assure the kid that it was okay, that things hadn't been that bad, or even just that none of it had been his fault, but he couldn't. For reasons that Len didn't understand his words just wouldn't come out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry." The kid repeated. He looked up at Len, who froze at the look in those eyes. He...he _knew_ those eyes. He had seen them every single day, especially as a child. He saw them in his own reflection, filled with fear and sadness. Even more than they resembled his own eyes, they resembled somebody else's, which didn't make much sense. This boy's eyes were filled with compassion and sympathy, but when Len saw them all he could think about were the cold, angry, unforgiving eyes of…

"Leonard, are you okay?" Len blinked and lifted his gaze towards Sara, who was looking at him in concern.

"Of course I am." Leonard said in a cool voice that actually sounded normal, even though he was feeling about as far from normal as he had felt _that_ day when Lisa's life had been threatened the the man who was supposed to be their father. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem kinda off." Sara said bluntly. She turned her gaze to the boy curled up at Len's side. "Do you want me to take him?"

"He's fine." Len didn't really mind having the kid there...alright, that was a lie. Len felt _very_ weird having this kid be so close to him, and not just because he wasn't a fan of close physical contact. But the kid wasn't actually doing him any harm, and seemed to have made himself comfortable. It would be a shame to move him.

It was another two hours before Rip came in to tell them that the damage had been repaired, the time pirates had been caught, the adult's memories had been wiped, and the kid's parents were outside the museum to get them. They weren't going to use the memory erasing pills on these kids, because for some reason they didn't work properly on anybody under the age of eighteen, and risking it might cause more harm than good.

So the kids would be remembering _all_ of this. Len guessed that they just had to hope that they all just waved it off as some figment of their imagination, or at the very least that none of these kids were smart enough or observant enough to piece together what had actually happened.

...Fat chance of _that_ happening. In Len's experience, kids were much smarter than they were given credit for. But hey, what did he care that two dozen kids in the fifties remembered staying on a spaceship and seeing a girl who flew and a boy on fire?

"Come on." Sara got to her feet, ending the card game that she had started to get some of the older kids to calm down. "Let's go find your parents." She began ushering the kids out of the room while she carried one girl who had fallen asleep.

Len's kid had dozed off too, and had been using his shoulder as a pillow. Len didn't want to wake him and deal with a half awake, confused whiner who just wanted to keep on sleeping. So Len carefully lifted him up and carried him piggyback style off the ship. When he caught up with Sara she raised an eyebrow at him, but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.

The Waverider was parked just behind the museum, so they had to walk from the back to the front to meet up with the parents and other adults, who had all been told that there had been some gas leak or something like that. Understandably many of the parents were concerned and came rushing to meet their kids the second they came into view.

Len only had to wait for a few moments before a man who was probably the boy's father approached him. Len did a double take when he saw the man, because he _knew_ him. He looked about forty years younger than how Len remembered him, but somehow he looked incredibly the same. Some quick calculations in his head told Len that the times lined up pretty well too. But if _he_ was here, and the kid Len was holding was really his son, then...oh no.

Oh, God, _please_ no!

It couldn't be possible. Fate couldn't possibly be this cruel.

When Len heard the man say his son's name though, he knew that, yes, fate _was_ that cruel.

"Lewis." Len flinched slightly at that name. He felt his grip loosen on the kid - _Lewis -,_ but the boy's father was there to grab his son before he even knew that he was going to fall.

"Thank goodness he's okay." The man, whose name, Len remembered, was Lukas, held his son close. He looked at Len gratefully. "I hope he didn't cause you any trouble. Lewis can be a bit of a handful sometimes.

 _Yeah, no shit!_ The panicked voice in Len's head said, but he kept that to himself. "He was fine." Was all he could manage to say.

Lukas' eyes narrowed slightly in concern. "Are you alright?" Len silently cursed the fact that this man always seemed to be able to see right through him. He always had been able to do that.

"I'm fine." Len choked out in what he hoped at least passed as a normal tone. He was just grateful that he was able to say _anything,_ because on the inside he was completely freaking out.

The man didn't look entirely convinced, but before he could say anything the boy in his arms shifted and tiredly opened his eyes. He looked at Len. Lewis didn't do anything else, he didn't even _say_ anything, he just looked at Leonard. _That_ was Len's breaking point.

"I-I've gotta go." He stammered out. Len ignored Sara's questioning look and pushed past the children and adults in his way. He just needed to get out of there. He felt like he couldn't breath.

That kid...that _kid_ …

Len cursed the fact that he hadn't noticed it before. He should have paid more attention to when and where they were. He should have prepared for something like this to happen. He should have kept his guard up.

Len hated how worked up he was getting about this, but he couldn't help it. He hadn't been expecting this to happen.

Ever since they had started time travelling Len had been mentally preparing himself just in case he ran into his father again. He had planned on putting up walls and never allowing himself to be hurt by that bastard ever again.

He hadn't even considered that he would run into his father like _this._

A kid...He was just a damn kid. A small, innocent, faithful, kind kid.

Len ran back to the Waverider and locked himself in his room before he could convince himself to turn around. He was _oh_ so tempted to go back to where Lewis was and break the little bastard's neck. He wanted to. He really, _really_ wanted to, but for multiple reasons he knew that he couldn't.

The first and most obvious being that if he killed his father, then he would be wiping himself and Lisa out of existence, and that just wasn't an option.

The second reason, and the one that was giving Len the hardest time, was that he had a code. He did _not_ hurt women or children. Even though the Lewis Snart that he knew was anything but a defenceless innocent, the Lewis Snart that he had met today just wasn't that man. He was a little boy. An _innocent_ little boy, and even though Len knew that the man that he would become deserved to die, this kid didn't.

He was _just_ a child, and Leonard didn't harm children.

He wasn't his father.

Len took in a shuddering breath and sat down at the edge of the bed. He ran his hands over his head as memories of the innocent little boy that Lewis was now blended in with memories of the terrifying man that he would become.

Damn time travel.

Out of force of habit, Len felt under the collar of his shirt for his Star of David necklace and froze when he couldn't feel it. He had given it to Lewis ( _dammit!)_ and hadn't even realized that he hadn't bothered to get it back.

Len weakly laughed to himself as he put a hand over his eyes (he would forever deny the fact that they were the least bit wet) and fell back on the bed. His father had been the one to give that necklace to him. And now, Len had given it to Lewis, who would eventually return it to his younger self.

Sometimes, Len _really_ hated time travel. And it sucked that he _knew_ about time travel, but couldn't use it to go back to three hours ago and stop himself from ever talking to that little boy muttering a prayer in Hebrew.

Len's feelings about his father had been a lot simpler when he was just allowed to hate him.

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 **A/N: I'm just going to say that I did a quick wiki check on Len's grandfather, and was surprised to see that it said that he was Len's mother's father. I had always assumed that he was** _ **Lewis'**_ **father. I don't remember there being a specific place in the show where they say whose parent Len's grandfather is, so I just went with this. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. No big deal.**


End file.
